An important aspect of playing with games or toys is the setting, and the frequency of playing. Stringer et al., in “Who Wants to Play? Beginning Research into Mobile Gaming,” Designing Ubiquitous Computing Games Workshop, Proc. of UbiCOMP 2001, describe a class of “Games that Go in the Gaps.” By their definition, these are playing activities that fit in-between events and activities of our daily lives and are easily stopped and restarted. Opportunities for play may arise while commuting, or waiting for a meal or appointment.
Cellular telephones offer game and toy designers and players unique challenges and opportunities. When compared with personal computers (PCs) for playing, cellular telephones have a limited amount memory and processing, and the input/output (I/O) are also severely limited, e.g., a small number of keys and a low resolution display screen, with limited rendering primitives. Cellular telephones are not designed for playing and quality rendering. Conventional rendering techniques are not applicable to cellular telephones, particularly if high quality graphics images are desired. However, cellular telephones have good communication capabilities, including short messaging service (SMS), are portable, and there are literally hundreds of millions units deployed.
Computer “games” and software “toys” should be distinguished to highlight different styles of interaction. A game is usually played until an end condition is reached, for example, a player wins or looses, or a score is awarded. In contrast, playing with a toy does not imply a score or an aim to achieve some end-condition, interaction with a toy is a more creative, ongoing, open-ended experience. Often, toys allow the player to enjoy the experience of real-world activities, such as the hobby of fish breeding.
Alien Fish Exchange is a multi-player fish breeding game for wireless access protocol (WAP) cellular telephones. Alien Fish Exchange is marketed by nGames Ltd, Cambridge, England. In Alien Fish Exchange players compete against each other to produce the most exotic fish possible. Players gain points by selling these fish to restaurants that pay based on the rarity of the breed. The emphasis of that game are on the economics of the fiscal facets of the game, and the fanciful unrealistic, i.e., “alien” representation of the fish.
Maxis, Orinda, Calif., published a virtual fish tank for a PC using a program called el-Fish. Maxis also produces other well known simulation programs such as SimCity, SimAnt, SimLife, and SimEarth. The purpose of the el-Fish program is to create simulated aquariums. El-Fish allows the user to select the tank shape, and bottom and background texture. The tank can be filled with computer generated plants, rocks, coral, and underwater statutes, or other underwater debris.
Simulated fish are created using over 800 parameters of behavior, color, size, and shape of the simulated fish. New fish, having variations in color and shape, are created by “evolution” or “breeding.” Evolution recombines the parameters of an individual fish, while breeding combines the parameters of two fish in an unnatural way. There is a value for each parameter that indicates its “strength.” When two fish mate, their offspring takes the parameter with the higher value. The weaker parameter may modify the stronger parameter slightly. Breeding a fish with desired attributes is difficult. For example, breeding two fish with long fins can result in an offspring with no fins at all. Both of these methods can produce mutant fish that can no longer breed or evolve. In a third method, the parameters are manipulated by the user.
The fish generation in el-Fish is not realistic, e.g., fish can be bred according the spelling of peoples names, the Gettysburg Address, colors of candy in a bag of M&Ms, the digits in π, etc, to produce bizarre looking fish. Fish can also be animated with accompanying music. Fish simulation requires a powerful PC class processor with a math co-processor, 8 MB of random access memory, 15 MB of disk storage, and a VGA color monitor, clearly beyond the limited capabilities of a cellular telephone.
CyberLife Technology markets a line of breeding and nurturing software for children with few set goals called Creatures. Creatures have a large set of “genes” resulting in a large number of physical and behavioral variations. Players direct the development of their creatures over time by interacting with them. Creatures focuses largely on the nurturing of pets, and not their aesthetics. Like el-Fish, the breeding of Creatures also occurs in an unnatural way. When two Creatures mate, each gene of their offspring is taken in whole either from their mother or their father randomly. Genes do not adhere to the real-world Mendelian genetics.
Other software with an aesthetic or evolutionary focus include those described by Sims in “Evolving Virtual Creatures,” Computer Graphics, Siggraph '94 Proceedings, pp.15–22, July 1994, Sims “Evolving 3D Morphology and Behavior by Competition,” “Artificial Life IV Proceedings,” Brooks & Maes editors, MIT Press, pp.28–39, 1994, Sims “Artificial Evolution for Computer Graphics,” Computer Graphics, Siggraph '91 Proceedings, pp. 319–328, July 1991, and Todd et al., “Evolutionary Art and Computers,” New York: Academic Press, 1992.
Danesh et al., in “Geney: Designing a Collaborative Activity for the Palm Handheld Computer,” Proceedings of CHI, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2001, describe a collaborative problem-solving game to help children explore genetics on a handheld computing device. Players breed and trade fish and participate in an experience with both single and multi-player facets. Like a cellular telephone, a handheld computer also has limited resources and size. Geney is primarily an educational tool, where a small number of genetic traits allow children to quickly grasp a few key evolutionary concepts. Therefore, the physical representation of fish only conveys the genetic characteristics, i.e., a simple line-art image with textual description is appropriate to this goal.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide toy software for cellular telephones. In addition, it is desirable to provide a toy that mimics a real-world hobby, namely the popular Japanese pastime of breeding ornamental fish (koi). The toy should incorporate embody a rich visualization that accurately reflects the aesthetically pleasing qualities of koi breeding. In addition, it playing with the toy should be possible to continue for days, months, or even years to fit, like hobbies, gaps in our lives.